The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting Jan. 30, 2017

Yesterday, we went to a small performance. An opera singer and her husband, a pianist, and a belly-dancer with her husband playing drums. About 30 people in a local coffeeshop, enjoying the performance. But one of the pieces caught my attention.

See, they did the Copacabana. By Barry Manilow. Instrumental, with the pianist and the opera singer playing a keyboard, the drummer thumping away, and the belly-dancer happily shimmying and shaking. But... I was trying to remember the lyrics. It seemed to me that this was one of those songs that has a happy tune, but lyrics that are a bit less upbeat? I mean, I enjoyed the melody, and the dancing, but... what was the story in the song?

So when I got home, I checked it out. Google immediately turned up the lyrics. OH! That's right.

Lola and Tony! The showgirl and the bartender, "They were young and they had each other, who could ask for more!"

And Rico. "He wore a diamond. ... But Rico went a bit too far. Tony sailed across the bar. ... There was blood and a single gun shot. But just who shot who?"

And the last verse... "Her name is Lola, she was a showgirl, But that was thirty years ago... She lost her youth and she lost her Tony. Now she's lost her mind."

With that trailing advice in the chorus, "don't fall in love..."

Oh! Three verses, about 200 words, and there's a whole story there! The two lovers, Rico and the fight, and... the aftermath, 30 years later. Whoosh. That's storytelling.

And the setting, in the driving rhythm and happy melody.

Can you do that in a short story? Why not! Hey, go ahead and tell us the story of Lola, Tony, and Rico. It's a well-worn tale, but there's still a few times to run it around the ring of tales.

Music and passion were always in fashion...
tink

Original posting 23 July 2008

Just for fun, pick a number from one to five. Guess what, you have picked the following quote!

1. "Everybody has difficult years, but a lot of times the difficult years end up being the greatest years of your whole entire life, if you survive them." Brittany Murphy
2. "The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best -- and therefore never scrutinize or question." Stephen Jay Gould
3. "Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence." Robert Fripp
4. "We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them." Abigail Adams
5. "Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves." J. B. Priestley

Now go write about it. For example, if music is the wine that fills the cup of silence, then writing must be the wine that fills the cup of ??? Which cup does writing fill, anyway? And what strange grapes are pressed to make that wine, eh? Can't you imagine the muses, bare feet squishing those grapes in the press of time and place, all to squeeze out a bit of plot and character, a dash of suspense and climax, filling the cup . . .

You can s t r e t c h that metaphor (simile? Trope? Whatever!), you can personify it, you can dress it up in fine words and purple prose and take it for a walk, you can . . . do lots of things with it!

Oh, yeah. Write about it.

When we write, sometimes we just talk to ourselves -- but at least we're likely to get an intelligent answer, part of the time.